Assembly District 66 Fighting for California’s values
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, Senate candidate Baron Bruno, assembly candidate Frank Scotto, Palos Verdes Chamber of Commerce CEO Eileen Hupp and State Senator Ben Allen. Photo
The candidates for California’s 66th Assembly District have already set their definitions for this year’s election. According to incumbent Democrat Al Muratsuchi, it’s a “Trump supporter versus California values.” But according to Republican challenger Frank Scotto, “it’s not [a race between] a leftist Democrat versus a moderate Republican.”
The district has flipped between parties over the previous two elections. Muratsuchi originally won the seat in 2012, before being beaten by Republican David Hadley during the 2014 midterm elections. Muratsuchi regained the seat in 2016.
Scotto, a former Torrance mayor, and city council member believes that the seat is up for grabs again – that he only needs to win Torrance and “move the needle” across the district – and that his solutions to residential tax and public safety concerns will bring him there.
“We have an R and a D behind our names, but it’s about your pocketbook, about public safety, about keeping Prop. 13, or about schools in terrible shape,” Scotto said at a recent Beach Cities League of Women Voters candidate forum. “Enough is enough, California. We’ve gone too far, and we need to make a change.”
Scotto’s approach has come straight from the California Republican playbook: Defend Prop. 13, the 1970s ballot measure that froze property tax; support Prop. 6, this year’s ballot measure that would repeal the legislature-approved gas tax earmarked for road improvements and public transit; and argue that Democrats, and his opponent, in particular, have been weak on public safety throughout the state.
“The South Bay, and I really believe this, has a very keen sense of public safety. We support our police, our fire departments. But we’ve handcuffed them,” Scotto said in a February interview, referring to 2011’s AB 109 criminal justice realignment, and 2014’s Prop. 47, voter-approved initiative that reduced non-violent, non-serious crimes to misdemeanors. Both were intended to reduce overcrowding in state jails and prisons.
“They reduced 150 non-violent crimes to misdemeanors. You can talk about the fact that crime hasn’t gone up, or is up only 15 percent, but of those 150, crime is up over 42 percent, and a lot of you have been victims of that,” Scotto said. His solution: the state needs to build more jails.
Muratsuchi counters by saying that he’s a former prosecutor and deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, and touts his endorsement from the California Police Chiefs Association.
“I want to emphasize, in order to fight crime responsibly, we can’t engage in fear-mongering. We need to make sure we’re talking about facts here,” Muratsuchi said, saying that he’s making property-crime issues a priority. But past bills, including a plan to include package theft rings in RICO statutes, haven’t caught on with his legislative colleagues.
What Muratsuchi has passed is AB 1775, which grants the state authority to prevent oil and natural gas pipeline infrastructure construction. The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in early 2018, blocks federal plans to open up federal waters to oil and gas exploration.
Muratsuchi has planted himself firmly as an opponent to President Donald Trump’s administration, arguing that Trump’s values are not California’s values. He’s made a point to appear at Women’s Marches, and rallies against federal immigrant detention camps, and hit the surf in support of his bill that made surfing California’s state sport.
He’s also taken a stand against Prop. 6, November’s gas-tax repeal measure. Funds from the gas tax increase, Muratsuchi said, have been planned locally for the Metro Green Line light rail extension project, and that the money is needed to repair roads and bridges.
But Scotto feels that Muratsuchi’s stances are pandering; that the gas tax increase is proof of government waste, and that there’s no need to increase the tax when the state’s budget could be redistributed.
The two are a few hundred thousand dollars apart in fundraising; as of the Sept. 27 filing deadline, Scotto had raised $721,000, 40 percent of which has come from political organizations. Muratsuchi had raised $1.3 million, more than 77 percent of which has come from political organizations.
Scotto admits that, if elected, he would be only one seat.
“But one seat will make a difference,” Scotto said, positing that he can help break the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority.
“It’s easy to criticize,” Muratsuchi said. “It’s harder to do.”